so i jumped it, and let you in
by littletincup
Summary: Shinra is pretty sure that when he said "Falling in love is just the thing to do on summer vacation," he was referring to himself and Celty, NOT Izaya and Shizuo.
1. 1

Warnings for swearing, aka teenage boys being teenage boys. Apart from that, enjoy?

* * *

**One**

Shinra says, one day out of the blue, "Let's go to the beach," when it's too hot and groggy enough for all of them to agree, even Shizuo, who has been known to disagree with anything Izaya is in favour of just on principle.

Looking back, Izaya will realise that this is the moment in which he should have realised what a manipulative little bitch Shinra is. But in his defence, his brain was too busy dripping out of his skull at the time to consider anything more that _sparkling cool water_ and _those fancy little cocktails with pink umbrellas_ and suddenly, they'd all agreed and Shinra is saying, "So, I've actually booked flights to this island resort because they were half price if you bought five," and no one is really bothered to hit him for being a presumptous fuck, and no one also bothers to ask about the fifth because of course, "I've also asked the delightful Celty to accompany us, and as testament of her kind and generous heart, she has agreed!" He says this with much more enthusiasm than is appropriate for their context, and Dotachin says, with the long suffering air of someone who has had this discussion many times before, the kind of air that has Izaya's eyes narrowing in suspicion, "You just want to see her in a bikini."

Izaya opens his mouth, question on the tip of his tongue _is this a trick who else knew about this before now_ because if the answer is _Shizuo_ then they are going to have _words._ But then Shinra shoves Dotachin who manages to get his half ice cream on Shinra's face (the other half drips onto Izaya's shorts) before he falls off the ledge and it's all shouting and flailing limbs for a while after that and Izaya forgets, although he really shouldn't.

* * *

'Erratic writing style' mostly means really really short chapters because I can. And, as it seems, a lack of paragraphing? That is actually unintentional, though.


	2. 2

IMPORTANT STUFF:

Disclaimer blah blah don't own (sad face) blah blah. Should've mentioned in first chapter but forgot, oops.

Title of fic is from the song Hands Down by Dashboard Confessional. Dashboard Confessional is like, 90% of the soundtrack for this fic. Lovely teenage angst and all, you know?

* * *

**Two**

Three days later finds them standing on the edge of a real swear to God tropical island, complete with leis and little pink umbrellas and what must be a booming tourism industry.

Izaya sneezes, because he's just the kind of person to suddenly develop an allergy to leis while standing in a tropical island resort.

.-.

**Three**

Shinra says, "So, we have three rooms," which explains why the tickets came so cheap, because _hello, _five doesn't even divide into three without cutting multiple someones in half.

Although, that can easily be arranged.

Shinra says, "Of course, me and the lovely Celty will be sharing one room," and that's as far as he gets.

In the end, it's settled (by Celty) that Celty will have her own room, while Dotachin and Shizuo share one room and Izaya and Shinra the other.

Then Dotachin _mysteriously _comes down with an illness that 1) has no visible symptoms, 2) only strikes during the night and 3) needs a doctor with him at all times, but _only during the night _and the point is, Dotachin is a lying liar. He is so not Izaya's favourite person any more. He was probably never Shizuo's favourite person either, because Shizuo doesn't have favourite people period, so that's all settled.

But on the other hand, Celty apparently has a soft spot for boys with traumatic childhoods who never actually show any sign of their traumatic childhoods (all eyes slide to Izaya at this point, and all he can do is mutter about the waste of a perfectly good traumatic childhood because really, what's the point of one if you can't milk it a little now and again?) and it's three against two and Izaya is rooming with Shizuo, hurrah hurrah.

He says, arms crossed and tone injured, "If I get smothered in the middle of the night with a pillow with _frills _on it, it's all your fault," to the world in general, because really, that's the crux of the situation. Shinra just laughs and pats him on the back.

Dotachin, also laughing, pats him on the back and tells him, "Thank you for taking my health into consideration," solemnly but _still laughing _and Izaya hisses, "I will put _worms _in your swimming trunks," and Dotachin has the audacity not to even look alarmed. _So _not his favourite person any more.

* * *

Oh, do I see _plot development? Backstory?_

_..._nope, must have been my imagination.


	3. 3

**Four**

"So," Izaya says, drawing the word out until he runs out of breath. He would totally add a cute squiggle on the end of the word, but he hasn't quite figured out how to get his voice right and just ends up sounding like a dying cat every time he tries it. Instead, he waggles his eyebrows, because that's almost_guaranteed_ to get a rise out of Shizuo.

Shizuo radiates silent killing intent.

Izaya pouts. "Silent killing intent got old two days ago, you know. I would tell you try to keep up with the times, but that's obviously beyond you and your small brain."

Shizuo is actually making a valiant effort to ignore him. Izaya suspects it has something to do with Dotachin, which is just all the more reason why he's not Izaya's favourite person anymore. If he's going to room with Shizu-chan, the least he can expect is to have some fun, right?

Izaya taps his fingers against his chin, mock consideringly. "I wonder...might that echo another part of your anatomy?"

Shizuo's silence takes on a chilling edge. Izaya, considering that it's about a hundred degrees outside, is rather glad of it.

Something creaks dangerously under Shizuo's hands.

_Wait for it-_

"Your skin is turning a startling shade of red, Shizu-chan. Any redder, and we could showcase you at the country fair as a tomato."

_Keep waiting, don't move yet-_

Something snaps. Most likely: Shizuo's sanity. Again.

_Not quite-_

Izaya resists the urge to giggle as he delivers his next line with remarkable aplomb.

"After all, you're already dull enough to be a vegetable."

_And, here it comes-_

"IZAYAAAAAAAA!"

_Ah, there it is._

Izaya turns on his heel and sprints for the door, crackling and whirling like he's the evil witch in the Wizard of OZ. But with better hair, of course.

**Five**

Izaya finds Shinra buried underneath approximately a hundred tourist brochures.

Approaching from behind, he rolls his eyes, asks, "Have you considered a Hawaiian shirt while you're at it? Maybe some giant sunglasses? Bright yellow cap with the words, 'I heart Tropical Island Resorts' emblazoned across it?"

Shinra makes an 'eep!' sound, and flails. Considering that he is flailing in a sea of paper, Izaya concludes that the cleaners are going to have a field day.

A flurry of brightly coloured papers obscures Izaya'a vision, and amidst the confusion, Izaya somehow ends up with a handful of brochures, and Shinra's hand, shoved into this face.

"Okay," Shinra says,"so I was looking through these last night, and guess what? There are theme parks here! Celty loves theme parks! So I've arranged for us to go to one the day after tomorrow, after we've settled down and unpacked and I can take Celty on a long walk along the beach and we can enjoy the sunset together with a romantic picnic-"

Izaya considers telling Shinra that he's confusing Celty with an online dating site's profile page. He takes a moment to regard the notion, then says, casually, "Bring along some romantic novels and scented candles and I'm sure it'll go wonderfully."

Shinra beams rainbows and kittens. _The power of young love has unimaginable power_, Izaya thinks wryly, slowly backing away before the leprechauns decide to try to take back their rainbows. Celty would have a fit if that happened.

"Okay," Shinra chirps, "so today, I'm thinking a romantic hike through the wilderness. The plants around here are rumoured to have fascinating deadly toxins!"

Izaya considers telling Shinra that his definition of 'romantic' is fascinating in the way deadly flowers are fascinating. But he's not that nice.

**Six**

Shinra brings with him approximately a hundred glass jars. He'd look like a snowman if, you know, snowmen were made of glass jars.

"For samples!" he'd said cheerfully.

"What are you going to do with them?" Shizuo had asked warily.

"Create potentially deadly and definitely unstable drugs of questionable nature in the makeshift lab slash lair in my basement. There may be the changing of genders, unexpected pregnancies, or a combination of both involved."

"And crazed Frankenstein laughter," Kadota added.

"Ah," Izaya said. "That would explain the noticable lack of a certain piece of Shizu-chan's anatomy."

...

"I'LL KILL YOU!"

"Oh, he's still hung up over that," Shinra observed over the sound of shattering glass (he doesn't appear to be particularly upset over the damage to his property. Being friends with Shizuo and Izaya, he's probably used to it), to the remaining members of their little travelling expedition.

"Everyone goes through a dick jokes phase," Kadota said wisely, conveniently forgetting to mention that his own, which had ocurred a few years prior, had gotten him kneed in the balls more than once. He hadn't worked out that the jokes were gender specific until afterwards.

Then, as realisation struck like a(nother) hard knee to the balls, "Wait, does Izaya actually know that?"

"Oh, you don't want to know."

Kadota'a face made the transition between several shades of white and red. Shinra tried to stifle his snickers until Celty whacked him on the back of his head, hard.

If Shinra were less loyal (read: lovestruck) he might've muttered, pseudo-hurt, _traitor_.

If Kadota were less of of _the only sane person in this fucking side of the fucking island_, his brain might have jumped into the sea to try to wash itself.

If Celty had been any more intelligent, she would never have agreed to this 'holiday' in the first place. As it is, she could only mourn the lack of higher brain functions as she tried to save as many of Shinra'a jars as possible.

.-.

Most of Shinra'a jars suffer painful and possibly humiliating deaths. Izaya considers asking him why the hell he even had that many jars on him in the first place and why the hell no one noticed it in his luggage, but realises he's probably better off not knowing.

Then Shinra says, cheerfully, "Don't worry, I packed spares," and Izaya thinks that he's _really_ better off not knowing.

* * *

WOW this is late. But long, so that makes up for it. Hopefully? :D?

In other news, went back, looked over first chapter and realised WOW TEN MILLION SPELLING MISTAKES. T'is what happens when you write on a program that doesn't have spellcheck. So I've gone back and edited that. Aand, nothing else of interest? Nope, okay.

Oh, and reviews are always nice. Hint hint!


	4. 4

**Seven**

Under the cover of darkness, Izaya sneaks out of bed and pads on socked feet over to Shinra and Dotachin's room because he is about to _seriously injure_ someone if he has to put up with another minute of Shizuo radiating _killkillkillkillkill_ like he'd been doing the past fucking hour_. _There is no variation. Not even a little bit of thinking of maiming, or torture, or like, throwing large and breakable objects or anything. Izaya really wants to say _you've gotta be more specific than just killkillkill, Shizu-chan_ but he doesn't actually want to have to pay to replace another mattress. He wonders what Shinra would think if he had to foot the bill for a lot of _mattresses_ of all things_, _then realises that he doesn't really want to know, as he's finding out is more often than not the case with Shinra.

He raps twice on the door, calls out, "If you're watching porn put it away now," slides the key into the lock (don't ask where he got it from because you won't like the answer) and flings the door open dramatically.

To his disappointment, they're not watching porn.

.-.

**Eight**

Izaya kicks, wriggles and squeezes his way into Shinra's bed beside Shinra.

Dotachin mourns the silent death of his peaceful night from the relative safety of his top bunk, then says, like an afterthought, "If we're going to be doing this, I think Shizuo needs to be here too."

Izaya points out, "You stole Shinra from me. You _do not_ get a say in anything from here on out."

"Also," Shinra says, "What is this 'this' you speak of?"

Dotachin sighs, rolls over and tries to go to sleep. Izaya's kicking really doesn't help with that.

.-.

"So," Shinra says into the silence, drawing the word out in a decidedly suspicious way. Izaya raises his eyebrow, and Dotachin mutters, "This is a bad idea," albeit too resignedly for his words to have any impact.

"Still going on about the 'this'?" Izaya asks.

"_So_," Shinra says, again, significantly, "If we're doing the whole sleepover thing, I really feel like we should be braiding each other's hair and talking about boys. I have nail polish and everything!"

"You have," Dotachin says, then stops.

"It's Celty's," Izaya says with a snort. "He just likes to wear it so he can pretend his hands are hers. Which is just creepy on _so many levels_, you know."

"Oh God," Dotachin says. "What I'm thinking right now."

"Is about right," Izaya finishes.

"Hey!" Shinra says. "There's nothing wrong with -"

"I am so not drunk enough for this discussion," Dotachin groans. He climbs down from his bunk and wanders out of Izaya's line of vision. This is followed by suspicious rustling.

"This doesn't even qualify as a discussion yet," Izaya points out, and then, "Share."

.-.

Izaya will only admit to his lies when he's just tiptoeing the line between tipsy and Holy-shit-I-am-going-to-have-the-worst-hangover-tomorrow drunk. Never mind that in his current state, tiptoeing anywhere would lead to most certain and painful death, or at least incapacitation. Whether it be of himself or of others, he really can't say.

The point is, Izaya is maybe a little drunk. "Just," he raises his hand, holding his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart, "just a little. About this much drunk."

Shinra snorts. "Wait, just let me check that the sky's still blue."

Izaya manfully ignores him, says forlornly, "Tomatoes aren't even vegetables, you know. I was thinking capsicum, actually, but that doesn't have the same effect."

Dotachin giggles. Izaya's not sure why, so throws something at him and misses spectacularly. It's based on principle, okay?

"And," he continues, "Shizuo isn't really...that. Red. Fruitlike. I wouldn't be so," he waves his hands vigorously, and nearly falls off the bed, "that. You know. If he were."

"I know exactly what you mean, dude," Dotachin says, and he's _still_ giggling, so Izaya feels obliged to point out _who the fuck apart from stoners and people with really big muscles call people 'dude'? Are you sure you haven't had your brain stolen by cats?_

He feels obliged to say that last part aloud.

Shinra pops into his line of vision, which should be physically impossible because Izaya is lying on the top bunk, staring up at the ceiling and unless Shinra gained the ability to fly while he'd had his back turned-

"If you're talking about the wondrous Celty," he says grandly, and okay, those are definitely wings of love and sunshine and rainbow vomiting unicorns sprouting out of his back, "I can confirm that the only mind she has stolen is mine! Along with my heart, of course. And certain parts of my anatomy -"

Shinra gets an elbow to the face.

"That's also discrimination, you know," Shinra quips, from what appears to be a tangle of limbs on the ground. Dotachin pokes him with a stick. "Think of all the lonely green capsicum who have body image issues because of what you just said!"

"Say no to uniformity!" Dotachin shouts. "We will not stand for this oppression! Embrace individualism and be whatever colour you want to be!"

"Here here," Shinra says.

"And also shape," Dotachin adds, nodding. "We can't forget the red onions."

"Okay," Izaya says. "So we're making a salad now."

They've clearly all had their minds stolen by cats. Well, shit.

.-.

**Nine**

"So," Dotachin says, "our next topic of discussion."

"Discussion," Izaya snorts.

"As supplied by Shinra."

"Who is currently lying in a puddle of his own drool."

"Asleep."

"Maybe dead."

Izaya and Kadota pause for a moment to stare down at Shinra.

Shinra snores.

"Asleep, then."

"Girls, then."

"Boys, actually," Izaya says flippantly.

Dotachin blinks, looks at Izaya for a moment before he nods. "Okay. Boys, then." It is so obvious why Dotachin is Izaya's favourite person ever.

"Like Shizuo?" Dotachin continues. Okay, only his favourite every Sunday, then.

"That is a horrible thing to say," Izaya pronounces, pointing an unsteady finger at Dotachin's face (or, well, one of the few Dotachins' faces swimming before his eyes; he might be a little drunk, but just a little, and of course the sky is still blue what the fuck are you going on about, Shinra), "I feel betrayed by your lack of faith in my good taste. I am deeply offended here, you know. I would totally throw something at you if I could figure out which one of you is the actual you." He squints manfully at the Dotachins in front of him. In response, they frown at him, all in unison. What is this trickery.

"That is _mean," _the Dotachins say. "You are so _mean, _Izaya."

"And you are so secretly a twelve year old girl, so _ha_." Izaya sticks his tongue out in Dotachin's general direction. "Also really really drunk."

"Who are we talking about again? You or me?"

"You," Izaya says emphatically, "are also so not subtle. It should be a crime, how not subtle you are. You probably go around talking euphemisms about bananas or something."

"I don't like bananas," Dotachin says.

"Exactly my point!" Izaya exclaims.

Dotachin manfully ignores him. "_Moving on_, what kind of guys do you like then?"

"How is that moving on at all?" Izaya says, with a healthy air of disbelief. "And is that your insanely unsubtle way of propositioning me?"

Dotachin throws a pillow at him. It misses. "Contrary to your misguided beliefs, your mere presence is not quite enough to turn every guy in the world gay."

There are a lot of big words in that sentence. Izaya struggles for a moment to make sense of it. "More's the pity," he finally says, gravely.

"I mean," Dotachin says, "Shizuo's hot, right?"

Izaya stares at him for a long moment. "Are you _sure."_

"I mean, objectively."

"You're not drunk?"

"I only said that for your benefit," Dotachin huffs, then shudders, mock dramatic. "Urgh, I feel like I've caught your cooties."

Izaya laughs. "I would pat you on the back, but wouldn't want to infect you with even more gay germs or anything."

"But seriously," Dotachin says, "Why not? He's, you know," he waves his arm in the air, "tall and blond and stuff."

"He's also a Neanderthal with the emotional capacity of a gnat," Izaya scoffs. "I like my boys with a little more wit and intelligence, thank you very much."

"Please don't tell me you're one of those people who are like _I wasn't guys who are jaded and cynical and have an excellent sense of irony_ because I will hit you if you are."

"And can quote Eliot," Izaya says solemnly.

"You are so full of it."

"And that's why you _lurve_ me."

This time, Dotachin's pillow – where'd he even get so many pillows anyway, Izaya would really like to know – doesn't miss. Izaya laughs. Shinra snores.

* * *

So, I was going to do this crazy thing called 'weekly updates'. Let's laugh about that together, now shall we?

But so, seriously, I will try to update faster next time. Blame LIFE and the fact that shit actually happened. If it's any consolation, this chapter is like, the longest yet. Yay?

In other news, I went to a lecture about psychopaths the other day. It was...enlightening, for lack of a better word. This may or may not be significant to this story; I just felt like mentioning it.

I will actually attempt to update in a week's time, pinky swear. If not, you can feed me to the fishies, okay?


	5. 5

HOLY SHIT GUYS, I'M SO SORRY I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW LONG IT'S BEEN ASDF;DJSALKJ. I have so many commitment issues I don't even. Also ajsdkfl;dsjk seriously I rewrote this chapter like ten time and I still hate it so it's not even halfway done but I figured, just post it now because if I don't I literally will never write anything and everyone can scream at me or something. But seriously I hate it it's all blah and not even funny I don't even know.

Also on that note does someone want to beta for me? (when I say beta I literally mean just scream at me until I write and also let me scream at them, that's about it.)

Also if you noticed I went back and randomly reformatted the previous chapter and deleted the first chapter/prologue thing because seriously that's what I started it off with but now I literally have no idea what it's doing it's all teenage angsty?

ALSO PLEASE DON'T KILL ME FOR HOW THIS CHAPTER ENDS.

But yeah, hi. ENJOY OR SOMETHING.

* * *

**Ten**

The sky is really fucking blue. There's probably something wrong with that statement, centered around the fact that he really shouldn't be able to see the ceiling when he's lying spread eagle on the floor, but then again, oh, there's a hole in the ceiling. Just another by-product of one of his and Shizuo's, well, arguments - and when he says 'argument', he actually means 'argument'. They hadn't even had a proper fight yet. It's not that Izaya doesn't want to, it's just that he's not sure whether the resort would be able to stand it. And despite what people (Dotachin) seem to think, he would rather stay on Celty's good side. The last time he'd crossed her, he hadn't been able to sit down for a week. He still shudders at the memory and pointedly avoid seashells.

But let's not dwell on past memories now, especially as painful as those he'd experienced at the hands of 'the lovely Celty' (followed by, of course, more at the hands of 'the honourable Shinra', once he'd found out that 'the lovely Celty' had sullied her hands in such a way. Everyone is clearly insane, but that's nothing new). The point is, the sky would be really really fucking blue if he would stop squeezing his eyes shut, but that certainly doesn't stop him doing so now, nor from flinging an arm across his face because it feels like someone's taken a drillsaw to his head, which knowing Shizuo, is actually not out of the realms of possibility. He muffles a groan in the crook of his elbow and tries to burrow into the ground. It doesn't work. He resorts to waiting for the ground to take initiative, open up and swallow him whole.

He's still waiting, an undetermined amount of time later, when a voice says "Oi," way too close to his head. Pain rockets through his skull and he thinks, rather pettily, that it'd serve whoever dare bother him right if he vomited all over their shiny black shoes.

When the pain's faded, or at least as much as it's willing to right now, he cracks open an eye.

It's Shizuo.

Of-fucking-course it's Shizuo.

Izaya squeezes shut his eye again. "Your hair is a sin against everything humanity stands for," he says, even though using polysyllabic words just increases the dull hammering pain in his brain (he has an image to keep up, you know). He's pretty sure he can see it even through his closed eyelids. He's pretty sure it's actually glowing. It would be fascinating in any other circumstance, but seriously, right now it just makes him want to physically dig into the ground just to get away from it, it's that bright.

Why had he never noticed this before, Izaya really can't say. He attributes it to the fact that normally, the porcupines in his head don't feel like they're trying to have really really athletic sex. In midair. And come to think about it, they'd probably invited all their porcupine friends too, to have an orgy. In midair. Zero gravity. With fireworks exploding around them like some sort of insane mating ritual dance thing.

The mere image of that alone is enough to make him want to vomit.

When Shizuo doesn't appear inclined to fall into a really deep hole all by himself, Izaya elaborates: "in terms of brightness, it's pretty much a reflection of your level of intelligence."

"What," Shizuo says.

"Haven't you heard the dumb blond jokes?" Izaya mumbles. "I mean, there's a reason you dyed your hair, right? I'm just assuming it has something to do with you finally acknowledging your protozoan brain state. So I mean, accurate, since it's really really fucking bright. And oh, you're really really dim. Ha. Good one."

Shizuo doesn't say anything, and Izaya cracks one eye open, 'what, cat got your tongue' on the tip of his tongue. But then, there's a flash of Shizuo's enraged face - and he really does look like a tomato, doesn't he - before something very very black is accelerating at an alarming speed towards him. The pain in his head explodes, tripling at least a hundred fold. The world goes dark.


	6. 6

What's this? A wild update appears!

So, hopefully updates will actually be more regular now (read: around every once in two weeks?) because I'm 'getting back into the groove', whatever that means, but at the same time, knowing me, god knows when I'll suddenly lose my 'groove' again.

Also, still looking for beta reader. I'll probably keep saying this until someone actually volunteers, so, you have been warned.

Apart from that...enjoy!

* * *

**Eleven**

Izaya wakes up. This is surprising for many reasons, the most pertinent of them being that he hadn't expected to, you know, actually wake up after what felt like a grade ten typhoon slamming right into his head, courtesy of darling Shizu-chan. The fact that he just narrowly escaped death should probably be a bigger thing than it actually is, since, you know, he's just getting started in his career as a regular defier of the ol' Grim Reaper, but then again, there are still bits of furniture being flung around in his head even if the actual typhoon is over, which means that it basically feels nearly as bad as his hangover had, and hence, he really doesn't have enough braincells to spare to thinking about anything else.

Huh, so Shinra's accomplished making alcohol literally more potent than being nearly killed. What an achievement!

He has no idea how long he lies there, spread eagle on the ground, staring at the hole in the ceiling and feeling his head throb, before the door swings open with a dramatically loud bang. Shinra twirls into the room (and yes, Izaya means that in the most literal way) in an explosion of tropical Hawaiian shirts and terribly short shorts, all chipper and beaming like he's either swallowed the sun or Celty had finally accepted his propositions (and the first one is actually more likely than the second, doesn't that say something about Shinra's ability to, er, _woo_), like he hadn't probably been about to choke on his own vomit not six hours ago.

"Good morning, starshine," Shinra sings, despite the fact that it is now like, at least noon. "The world says hello! I've been sent by Shizuo to collect you, since he says that he cannot stand one more _fucking_ minute looking at your _fucking_ mug but he needs to make sure that you're dead and wants me to bury you ten _fucking_ feet under." He says the whole thing - or rather, sings - really cheerfully while at the same time somehow managing to put way too much emphasis on the fucking.

Hormones, Izaya decides.

"You know," Shinra continues, "our room looks like the aftermaths of a war zone. Celty came in this morning and thought we'd been kidnapped by aliens who'd trashed our rooms and drunk all the alcohol while looking for signs of intelligence, which according to her, they were in the wrong place for. It took her a surprisingly long time to find me under the bed. She was really worried about me!"

'Us', Izaya wants to correct him, because raining on Shinra's parade is really fun. He'd also like to tell Shinra that he vies for affection like a particularly vindictive twelve year old girl, but he doesn't really have the moral high ground there, so he doesn't.

Instead, he says, "Why the hell are you not hung over and or dead right now?"

"My special hangover cure," Shinra says, brandishing a plastic bottle filled with what looks like something a cat regurgitated.

Izaya finds it kind of disturbing that 1) they're only in high school and have enough experience with hangovers to actually need a cure, 2) said cure was produced by someone who thinks that it's actually a good idea to wear Hawaiian shirts with pink shorts, and 3) that Shinra actually drank something that looks like it's glowing. He mulls over these three points for a moment, then dismisses them to the back of his mind as adult sensibility invading his thought process. Shinra probably has a cure for that stashed away somewhere too.

On that note, "What the fuck did we drink last night?" Izaya asks, accepting the bottle that Shinra passes him with a flourish.

"My special brew," Shinra says, proudly, like he hasn't broken at least like, a million laws for establishing a brewery in his basement. This is what science has fallen to, Izaya thinks with no small amount of disbelief, creating alcohol strong enough to knock out a horse in sixteen year olds' bedrooms.

Also, the Hawaiian shirts. Really.

"The secret ingredient," Shinra confides, "is nail polish remover."

"Ah," Izaya says after a long pause, while mentally revising all the ways he knows to kill a man with readily found household objects. He knows three. Not including kitchen utensils. "I think they made an ad about that once," he comments idly, "something about, oh, how not to accidently kill yourself and everyone around you out of sheer stupidity."

"The cigarette ads, you mean," Shinra says. "I'm thinking of staring up my own brewery."

Izaya can probably find more ways on the internet. The internet knows everything.

"So, if I asked you to rate it, on a scale from one to ten…"

In the face of such insurmountable odds, Izaya resorts to throwing a pillow at Shinra's face really really hard.

He also doesn't drink his 'miraculous hangover cure' (quoting what it says on the bottle in fluro sharpie), 1) because he doesn't actually have a hangover and 2) because he isn't actually suicidal. When he pours some onto a pot plant, it starts glowing an unholy purple; he's expecting tentacles to sprout out of Shinra's face in the near future. At least tentacles, if not a horn. He wonders if tentacles would make Shinra more attractive to Celty, because, you know, mysterious alien species, then realizes what he's even considering and goes to drown his brain in a vat of bleach.

**Twelve**

Izaya stares at his face in the bathroom mirror for a full one minute before he tears his eyes away and shouts to Shinra, who's still in the other room, "Hey, you didn't notice anything…weird about my face?"

"Celty?" Shinra yells back, which, what?

But, okay. Shinra wears glasses, that probably explains why he didn't notice that there is literally a mountain of shaving cream smeared in Izaya's hair, shaping it into little devil horns. Devil horns.

Seriously, Shizuo is so not subtle.

Izaya spends half an hour washing the shaving cream out of his hair, and another half attempting to rub off the permanent marker penis on his cheek - and whoever invented permanent markers really deserves to die since, you know, since when have permanent markers been used for anything but terror? – but since _attempting_ is the key word here, he fails miserably. Which means that people at the resort keep giving him double takes when they walk past him. Izaya tries to ignore everyone; it doesn't work, and Shinra keeps laughing at him because he's kind of a giant dick.

He asks Shinra what happened to Dotachin, and when Shinra says, "Unconscious," suggests drawing penises on his face, or, because he's feeling particularly vindictive, maybe rainbows and butterflies. Shinra shakes his head because he's busy, trying to formulate new formulas or new miracles or some shit.

Izaya says, "You are a weird dude, Shinra."

"Thanks!" Shinra says, looking way too happy to hear that.

Izaya goes to steal shaving cream from Shizuo's side of the bathroom (which is surprisingly neat, while his own looks like something exploded in it and ran away screaming, but what can you do, you have to accommodate for genius intellect and all), finds out that there is none and settles for foot cream instead. He wanders over to Shinra and Dotachin's room, finds Dotachin under the bed and applies a generous amount - read, dumps half the bottle - of it to his face.

"Aw," Shinra coos from behind him, "Doesn't he look adorable when he's asleep?"

Izaya jumps, because Shinra is a sneaky little ninja, and shudders really hard at that and tries to steer his thoughts as far away from that as possible because if he thinks about it, he probably will actually end up being traumatised for life, more than the time he found Shinra trying to collect sperm samples from that bear at the zoo.

So he backs slowly away from Shinra right out of the room. "Yes. Right. I'll just go...do something now. Somewhere else. That's not here."

"I hear that Shizuo's in the cafeteria," Shinra says, with a waggle of his eyebrows - which, why would he even do that? Shinra's eyebrow waggling is, well, it's like Izaya's fourteen year old girl voice thing. It'll probably end up being his trademark in ten, twenty years' time (next to his love for Celty, of course, because Izaya really doesn't expect anything of that to change in ten or twenty years' time, and isn't that just really, really sad) but right now, it just falls flat. In the way that he doesn't have the proper eyebrow muscles to waggle them, so he ends up waggling his whole head, and instead of looking pedophilic like his original intention he just looks Egyptian, which Izaya is pretty sure is somehow actually worse. Go figure.

So, he actually has no idea why Shinra's waggling his eyebrows at him since they'd all agreed that he should never do that, for any reason.

Unless he's trying to suggest something.

Huh.

Good point. Izaya still needs to somehow get Shizuo back for the whole 'defacing while asleep' thing. And he's still holding the bottle of half used foot cream in his hand.

Why not go all out?

He grins, with teeth (he'd been practicing that for ages, so it's gratifying to see Shinra sit up and pay attention) and says, "C'mon, we've got a war to start."

He skips out of the room, oblivious to Shinra facepalming in the background.


End file.
